Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 27958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
“I followed the paperwork trail and noticed Portia’s name on most everything, but a few documents had Tommaso’s name. At first, I thought it was because Portia was delegating, but then Grey pointed out that during the four months that Tommaso was incarcerated, another name replaced Tommaso’s. Elio Barone.”
My eyebrows rose. “His son?”
“Yeah. That got me curious about the car from Portia’s parking lot. It’s registered to Elio.”
I rubbed the back of my head and exhaled slowly as I sifted through all the pieces in my head. “I get that Elio is keeping Britta’s mom for his dad, but why has he been visiting the house so much?”
Deviant tried to keep his expression neutral, but I caught his slight wince and narrowed my eyes.
“I talked to King this morning. He finally brought the mole in for questioning.” Deviant pursed his lips together, then muttered, “Maybe he should tell you the rest.”
“You do realize that I’m seconds away from killing, right?” I seethed, my jaw clenched tight.
Deviant pulled his phone from his pocket and hit a button, then put it on speaker.
“King,” he answered.
“Tell Fox and Stone what you found out,” Deviant demanded.
King sighed. “You left the dirty work for me, didn’t you, asshole?”
Deviant snorted. “You’re not within shooting distance.”
“For fuck’s sake!” I shouted. “Somebody tell me what the fuck i going on!”
“We’ve been interrogating Tom—the prospect who gave up the girls—since last night. He admitted to sleeping with Portia and giving her details that gave away the location of Britta and her mom. He swore that was it and things were over, but he was obviously hiding something. Apparently, she’d ghosted Tom for a week, then suddenly showed up in…well, she seduced him, and he gave in.”
“They’d found Britta and taken Marylin,” Fox pointed out. “What else did she want from him?”
King was silent for a minute then muttered, “Britta.”
“What?” I shouted.
Fox shot me a warning look, and I inhaled slowly, attempting to calm down. “Obviously, King kept Britta’s whereabouts to himself or someone would have tried to get to her by now.”
I clenched my fists and began pacing. “What does this have to do with Tommaso’s son?” I asked, remembering their hesitance when they’d talked about him.
“Tom said that Portia repeatedly tried to get him to divulge Britta’s location, but eventually, she had to have realized he didn’t know. In all her time with Tom, she’d been very careful, but this time, she slipped. He overheard her on the phone later that night. She was pitching a fit about following the person’s orders, saying that he was just the boss’s son and she didn’t answer to him.”
“So Deviant is right,” Fox surmised. “Tommaso is the one running the organization.”
“Yeah,” Deviant agreed. “That’s what Tom suspected, but he didn’t know for sure until the next day when Elio turned up at his apartment. He used his fists to try to convince Tom to tell him what he wanted to know. All the while, Portia complained that his efforts were pointless and that she didn’t understand why Tommaso and Elio were so obsessed with these women. Then she accused Elio of wanting to fuck both of them since he’d been visiting Marylin so often. She didn’t think his daddy would be happy to share.”
“But Elio wasn’t interested in fucking Marylin,” King added in a low voice.
That was when it clicked, and I froze in place before turning to stare hard at Deviant, my hand drifting to the back of my pants and wrapping my fingers around the grip frame. “He figured Marylin could lead him to Britta.”
The thought of what would have happened if he’d found her clouded my mind and made me want to feed someone bullets.
Deviant’s eyes flickered to my arm, then returned to my face and narrowed. “Save it for Elio, Stone.”
“Take your hand off your weapon,” Fox ordered.
My hand clenched, and my trigger finger itched, but I did as I was told and released my gun before dropping my hand to my side.
Trying to contain my rage, I grunted, “When was this?”
“Two days ago.”
“So we don’t know if he went straight back to Marilyn in a tantrum and maybe even killed her?”
“We got lucky,” Fox interrupted. “Francesco’s inside man was given guard duty when Elio left town. As of this morning, Elio hasn’t been to visit her again. He also said to tell you that Elio never physically harmed Marylin when he interrogated her. Tommaso had given the order that no one should touch her, and Elio was too afraid that someone would tattle on him to his daddy.”
“Pussy,” I spat, shaking my head.
“No argument,” King agreed.
Fox’s phone cut off anything that might have been said next, and he frowned when he saw the caller. “Grey,” he told us before stabbing the screen to answer.
He listened for a second, then he cursed as his expression turned ruthless and deadly. “Thanks,” he growled before hanging up and clenching the phone in a tight fist. “Tommaso is being released tomorrow. His lawyer supposedly found a piece of new evidence that got the case tossed.”